


Protect Her

by Chicago_Brown



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Abortion, F/M, Gen, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-06
Updated: 2016-07-13
Packaged: 2018-07-21 23:18:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7409107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chicago_Brown/pseuds/Chicago_Brown
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He couldn’t protect her from the Lannisters. He couldn’t protect her from Ramsay Bolton. He may not be able to protect her from the armies of the dead.<br/>But he can protect her now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Show universe only, set midway through season 6.
> 
> This story centres around an abortion. If you feel uncomfortable reading this then please, go back. Comments are appreciated but any insulting or threatening comments regarding the subject matter will be deleted.

Jon swallows, but it does nothing to ease the rawness in his throat. He tries to steel his nerves and mentally scolds his cowardice; he has faced giants, wights and white walkers. He was murdered by his own brothers and saw the nothing beyond, but this makes him weak.

You craven shit, he thinks, Sansa needs you.

He listens to his sister’s careful instructions, as they race around his head once more. “There’ll be one near the brothel,” she had told him, “there always is.” Jon wonders how she came to know this.

The air is cold and bitter. He pulls his cloak tighter around himself and looks around to make sure he isn’t being watched. Bear Island is small, word travels quickly around here. But no, the alley is empty and cloaked in darkness and besides, anyone watching would most likely assume he is visiting the whorehouse two doors down.  
“That’s why it has to be you,” Sansa had explained. “A man spotted there will go unnoticed, I won’t be.”

He steadies himself and enters the shop; little more than a single room, rough wooden beams support the ceiling and dirty straw covers the floor. The air inside smells of burnt sage.

A short, wizened man looks up at him from the dying fire- he wears the green woollen cap of the apothecaries. Jon asks the man for his wife, just as she had instructed, and the man nods and leaves to fetch her.

Left alone with his thoughts, Jon feels bile rise in his throat. Sansa had come to him earlier this evening, her mouth set in a grim line and her eyes unblinking; Lady Mormont had offered them the hospitality of Bear Island, and this was her first opportunity to deal with her burden. It would also likely be the only chance she would have for a while. “I need your help Jon,” she had said solemnly, “I’d do it myself if I could, but Brienne is gone and the maester can’t know. No one can know.”

Jon had promised to protect Sansa, this meant from more than cut-throats and rapists.

The apothecary’s wife enters and interrupts his thoughts. She holds out her hand expectantly and Jon presses Sansa’s note into her palm. The woman reads it quickly and nods. “Two silver stags” she says quietly, and Jon pays her.

In return, she makes a small posy of dried yellow and purple flowers and a sprig of what smells like mint. She wraps it up in rough linen and hands it to Jon.

“She knows what to do?”

“I believe so.”

The woman nods again, satisfied. “Tell her to chew willow bark for the pain.”

With that she leaves, and Jon stalks outside with the bundle clutched to his chest. He trudges back to the keep through the snow.

He had known- of course he had known- that Sansa had suffered at the hands of Ramsay Bolton. He knows she was given to him, made to marry him, kept as his prisoner- he knows what that would have entailed. But he has never confronted it until today; he has never truly imagined what that bastard did to her.

He hates himself for it.  
…  
He stands, for a very long time, outside Sansa’s chambers. Jon imagines the dark, polished wood looking back at him, mocking him for his cowardice. Eventually, painfully, he knocks.

Sansa throws the door open almost immediately and ushers him inside. She’s wearing a simple night shift, her legs bare and hair tied back.

“Did anyone see you?” She asks, shutting the door behind him.

“A few men, but they were too drunk to pay attention to me.”

She nods, clenching her hands together. Jon hands her the posy, and she takes it gratefully. “She said you should chew willow bark.”

Sansa unwraps the linen and nods towards a table where willow bark, a small bowl and a stack of clean rags are already laid out. “I know. I had a handmaiden in King’s Landing, she told me what to do.”

Once again, Jon feels a sickening shame. The thought that she has prepared herself for this for so long, as if it was inevitable, makes his heart break. He turns to leave, intent on letting her do what she needs to in privacy, and getting drunk somewhere with Tormund.

“Wait.” He halts at the sound of her voice, looking back to see her wide frightened eyes pleading at him. “Will you stay?” She asks, and for the first time this evening her voice falters. “It’s going to hurt.”

Jon feels his stomach drop and his heart fill with blood. He rushes forward and gathers her up in his arms, holding her as tight as he can. “Of course I will.”

He couldn’t protect her from the Lannisters. He couldn’t protect her from Ramsay Bolton. He may not be able to protect her from the armies of the dead.  
But he can protect her now.

For a while they stand there together, with him petting her hair and stoking her back, before Sansa takes a deep breath and steps away. Jon watches silently as she moves towards the fire and takes off the large black kettle that had been nestled there. She shreds the petals off the flowers into the bowl, then crushes the mint in her palm and drops it in as well. Finally, she pours the boiling water over the mixture, just enough to cover.

Setting down the kettle, she comes back to Jon and leads him by the hand to the bed. “You have to let it stew for a few minutes.” She explains as they sit down. Jon brings his arm around her shoulders and lets her rest her head against him.

“What about the herbalist?” He asks after a moment.

“What about her?”

“If she talks…”

Sansa smiles wryly. “She won’t. If she does it’ll be dishonour for me but a flogging for her. It’s worth her while keeping her mouth shut.”

Jon places rough kiss on her scalp. “You haven’t been dishonoured.” He grunts through gritted teeth. “This is his dishonour, not yours.” Against his chest he feels Sansa sigh.

“I want children Jon.” She says eventually, sounding so very tired. “I want little boys who look like Robb and little girls who look like Arya, I want to fill the halls of Winterfell with them.” She twists in his arms and looks him in the eye, and Jon can see beads of tears on her lashes.

“But not like this.”

He feels himself pressing his forehead against hers, taking both her hands in his. Jon wants to tell her how brave she is, how she deserves a crown for her courage. He wants to tell her that she is magnificent, beautiful, precious. That he loves, loves, loves her and will rip out the throat of anyone who tries to hurt her again.

“You will.” He says instead.

Sansa closes her eyes and whispers “Thank you.” She stands and goes back to the table, drinking the contents of the bowl with her back to him, then returns to his arms and curls up like a child.

He holds her like that for the rest of the night, as she shudders in pain. He washes her thighs in warm water and gives her hot wine to drink.

In the morning, as he burns her ruined shift and the bloodied sheets off the bed, Jon resolves to give her Ramsay Bolton’s head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed this. For fans of my other story Lamb, I'm sorry I've been away so long- there was a good reason, I promise. Chapter 5 will be published soon, as well as another Jonsa fic and a piece of Daredevil Crack I've been scribbling.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had planned this as a separate story, but as it contains many similar themes and works well with the original, I've put them together. This doesn't reference Sansa's abortion, but does take place after it and should be read that way.

In the early hours of the morning, while the sky is a rich purple hue, a little girl pads quietly through the halls of Winterfell. Lyanna Mormont, honoured guest and close ally of the newly crowned King in the North, avoids the main hall and the courtyard- lest she is spotted by the servants.

She wears a nightgown several sizes too large for her, and a cloak that she hugs to her body with a desperate grip. Her hair mussed from sleep, she searches franticly for the Lord’s chamber, praying that she isn’t lost.

“Where is it? Where is it?” She mutters under her breath, before wincing in pain.

Finally, she comes across a great, carved door of old oak- she knows from her lessons that it’s the right one. If it isn’t, Lyanna thinks despondently, I’m about to look like an idiot child.

She knocks, as quietly as possible, so as to not wake anyone else, and almost cries with relief when her hostess answers.

Sansa Stark- Lady of Winterfell and the Dreadfort, Princess of the North and Daughter of the First Men- stands clad only in a shift and rubs the sleep from her eyes.

Suddenly Lyanna feels incredibly stupid; even dragged from her bed, Sansa is the most beautiful woman she has ever seen, elegant and regal. Dressed in her furs and stood amongst her peers, the Lady of Bear Island could almost, almost, pretend to be her equal.

But now she feels so very small.

“Forgive me, Lady Stark, I know it’s early.” She stammers out, as Sansa stares down at her quizzically. Lyanna feels the lump in her throat get bigger, and she fights the urge to turn around and scurry back to her room.

“Might I speak privately with you?” She bites her lip and feels ashamed. “My maester is back at Bear Island and I know no other women here…”

…

Twenty minutes later, Lyanna is curled up in her liege lady’s bed- at her insistence. Sansa has given her a shift of her own to wear, as well as a basin of warm water to wash herself. Now she folds strips of cotton into small bundles and glances up to smile at her bannerwoman.

“Make sure it’s not folded too tightly, or else it won’t absorb as much.” She hands one to her. “Place it in your smallclothes, make sure it’s secure. You’ll need to change it every three or four hours.”

Lyanna slips off the bed and goes behind the modesty screen in the corner. “I hope you don’t think me foolish, Lady Stark.” She explains as she changes, feeling like a fool. “I knew what this was, and to expect it. I just…”

“Didn’t think it would come so soon?” Sansa guesses. “You need not be embarrassed, Lady Mormont. It takes every girl by surprise the first time.”

Lyanna steps out and fidgets. “I thought I would be older.”

The lady sighs, tired and lovely. She motions for her to come back to the bed and takes her hand to help her up. “It comes at a different age for everyone. Some girls don’t flower until they’re in their twenties.”

“And the pain?”

“Will pass, though a hot drink will help you along. The first time I bled, I thought I had been stabbed in the night.”

Lyanna crosses her legs and idly plays with the hem of her shift. “I suppose this means I am a woman now.” She says glumly.

Sansa chuckles. “Oh no. Not yet.” She takes the young girl’s chin with her thumb and fixes her with a kind look. “This is just your body growing, nothing more. Some parts will grow faster than others, but you mustn’t let your womb decide when you are or are not a woman.” She grins. “You might as well let your elbows make battle plans.”

Lyanna giggles, and feels the tension lift from her shoulders. “When will I be one, then?” She asks.

“When you feel ready, My Lady.” Sansa sits back and her eyes go soft. “You are in a privileged position; you are the Lady of Bear Island, and answer to no one but yourself for the future of your house. If you should decide to marry-“

“When.” Lyanna interrupts. “House Mormont must continue.”

“Then you will be the one to decide when, and to whom. There are queens who do not have that luxury.” The mirth leaves her voice. “You’ve had to grow up so quickly. But in this matter, you are allowed to remain a child a little longer.”

On an impulse, she grasps the lady’s hand again, and wonders when she was last permitted to be innocent. They sit like this for a little while, in comfortable silence, before Sansa yawns and slips back beneath the furs, gesturing for Lyanna to join her.

“I ruined my sheets.” She confesses.

Sansa shrugs. “It happens to everyone. The serving woman will change them.”

“But-“

“She has to do it for herself once a month, I guarantee it will mean nothing to her.” She says sleepily, eyelids fluttering. “It’s a great equaliser you know; you could be an empress or a tavern wench, you’ll still have to deal with bloodied sheets.”

In the warm bed, Lyanna starts to feel the ache in her back and hips ease. “Lady Stark?” She asks nervously.

“Hmm?”

“When I wed… I hear it hurts.”

Sansa’s eyes snap open. “It doesn’t have to. The right man will be gentle, he’ll take care not to cause you pain.”

“But what if I marry the wrong man?”

“Then my brother and I will personally storm your keep and hang him from the battlements.” She replies, as if that is all there is to it.

Lyanna feels tears prickle her eyes, all at once enamoured and humbled. “When you and the King came to Bear Island, I insulted you. Please forgive me.”

Sansa shakes her head. “There’s nothing to forgive, My Lady.”

“Yes there is.” She feels tears run down her cheeks. “I had heard you were at Winterfell, that you were married to Bolton. We all knew what he was. I should have done something-“

“No. You shouldn’t have.” Cool hands cup her face. “If you had, he would have flayed you and slaughtered your household. And then who would protect your people? Who would defend them?” She brushes the hair away from the young girl’s face tenderly. “You came to our aid at our lowest point, we will never forget that, Lady Mormont.”

Still she cries, until Lyanna feels herself being pulled gently into strong, warm arms. She is held that way, safe and protected, for a long time after she stops.

“Lady Stark?” She whispers into her shoulder.

“Yes?”

“Would you call me Lyanna?” Suddenly she feels embarrassed again, even as the lady strokes her hair. “I know it’s not appropriate, but… no one’s called me by name since my mother died.”

“Only if you call me Sansa.” There’s a gentle kiss against her temple, and then a regretful sigh. “I’m sorry your mother is gone. She should have been here for this.”

“She won’t be here for a great many things.” Lyanna sniffs, and the treacherous lump in her throat reappears. “Do you miss your mother?” She asks timidly.

“I miss her so much, sometimes I can’t breathe.” Sansa answers. “But I try to keep her with me, in my heart.”

Lyanna listens to the distant song of the morning birds, and remembers how it felt to have her sides tickled, to have her hair braided clumsily and be called ‘little cub’.

“Yes.” She replies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the beautiful comments and all the kudos I've received; I can't tell you how touched I am.


End file.
